


A Little Something

by MilkshakeKate



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: F/M, Missions Gone Wrong, Mutual Pining, Negotiations, Pre-Relationship, Protective Illya
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 16:40:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14898191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MilkshakeKate/pseuds/MilkshakeKate
Summary: "Illya always dresses up Gaby. Can she dress him up for once?"





	A Little Something

**Author's Note:**

  * For [diadema](https://archiveofourown.org/users/diadema/gifts).



> Happy Summer Solstice, diadema! Thank you so much for organising this logistical nightmare!  
> Have a beautiful summer xxx
> 
> And now that the authors are revealed! Thank you, thank you, _thank you_ to my eternally lovely beta, [blueincandescence](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueincandescence) for her fresh set of eyes and her ever-encouraging yelling xxx

 

 

Gaby Teller’s wiles are not limited to coaxing KGB agents to dance. She can command a room with no more than a witty comment in an endearing accent, a coy little look from beneath her lashes. Within minutes the deplorable men around her are beaming, their cigarettes burning out and ice melting in their whiskeys as they ask just _how_ the housewife of such an austere Russian engineer can know so much about mechanics?  
  
She lowers her voice so they will listen closely, and she reveals that behind every intimidating man is a woman telling him what to do.

Her mark is Frank Armstrong, the current head of THRUSH Research and Development, here in Paris to pioneer his ‘aeronautical project’ currently underway in Odessa. He is scouting the very exclusive conference for new talent, and it’s Gaby’s job to convince him she’s a perfect fit.

It doesn’t take long.

“Mrs. Koslov, I would like to discuss business with you for a moment.” He takes Gaby’s arm, earning him an elegantly raised brow. “Privately.”

He is not the only man she has her eye on. Among his competition are three equally senior members of THRUSH’s operation. Their appointed ambassador, their commander of operations, and their treasurer. She hadn’t expected to be fought for, but creating some interdepartmental tension at THRUSH headquarters is never a bad thing. She wants to learn where Armstrong’s loyalty lies; will he play fairly by his organisation’s rules and share her with his team? Or will he break those rules and steal her for his own project? Such information will alert U.N.C.L.E. to the weaker links in THRUSH’s hierarchy, and they intend to exploit them.

But now she is in the heart of the lion’s den. It’s her decision whether to take the whole carcass or steal the scraps one by one.

“Mr. Armstrong,” Gaby counters, and gently slips her arm from his. “Why not open the bidding here? Your competitors are just as likely to win me over with a higher bid, so why waste time with this… chit chat? I’d like to hear their offers.”

Frank Armstrong’s lips purse tightly. He takes in his competition, and they take him in, too. Nobody had suspected that. But then, Gaby Teller’s speciality is the element of surprise.

They all start at once, hailing bids for her place in THRUSH’s scheme. Her barely showcased skills in engineering, her presence as a public speaker — so captivating, the pretty Mrs. Koslov could be the face of their recruitment, a lure for potential investors.

They really ought to be fighting for Illya’s expertise. _Mr._  Koslov is Russia’s fresh new face in aeronautical engineering, and Illya has lost many nights’ sleep to reading complicated textbooks in preparation for this very evening. However, having captured their attention with her frank opinion on their ‘state of the art’ schematics, Gaby certainly isn’t going to turn down their sudden interest in inviting her along too. If she were easily swayed in any direction but her own, the sums she’s quoted could have her settle down for life. A villainous life, perhaps, but lavish with all the luxuries she could desire.

She’s already wearing Dior. Not to her taste, but tasteful enough. It’s light, champagne gold, and barely perceptible against her skin. Raw silk with a halter-neck bow as delicate as petals. Beneath the bow is Illya’s omnidirectional microphone, recording and receiving every word, and under her dress are all the slim, flesh-coloured wires of the receiver, taped carefully to her bare skin.

Gaby smiles demurely at an extortionate figure thrown at her and, thinking of the partner she hasn’t heard from in a while, begins looking through her purse for her compact mirror. She tilts it to peer discreetly over her shoulder, only to find Illya advancing toward her with a frustrated grimace for the promise of oncoming social interaction.

She snaps the compact closed.

“Darling,” Illya greets stiffly, his hand high on her back. “I thought I had lost you.”

Ah. The microphone is faulty. Gaby smiles accommodatingly at him and continues her work while he fiddles with the bow at the nape of her neck. His fingertips are very cold. Shivers coast down her bare arms, her chest. On giving her this dress tonight he had instructed her, so bashfully, to go without a brassiere. Gaby covers her smirk for the memory by smiling coquettishly at her marks, while Illya continues to meddle with the minuscule piece of equipment.

If the men do notice Illya’s fixated stare on the back of his alleged-wife’s neck, they have decided to ignore him completely. They continue to make a compelling case for Gaby to join any one of their ranks. Between their six-figure quotes they begin to bicker, eyes off Gaby and glaring instead at one another, insisting that their need for her expertise is more pressing for THRUSH’s greater cause. She tries very hard not to roll her eyes, clearly losing these men to their own pissing contest.

Gaby shuts down the portion of her brain that can only concentrate on the skimming of Illya’s knuckles between her shoulders. She speaks up, “Gentlemen, please. I’ll take your figures into account, but that’s enough for tonight. Such a lovely party we’re missing... Perhaps we can arrange a meeting?”

“Eight o'clock, Monday morning, the lobby of the Grand Hotel,” says the commander, and nearly pushes his card into her hand.

“Seven o’clock, my offi—” starts Frank Armstrong, but he doesn’t finish. Gaby tilts her head at him with an expectant little smile.

But the men aren’t bickering anymore. They’re staring and gawping and neglecting to tip their cigarettes while she stands there, confronted only by their sudden, absolute silence.

Frowning, she follows their eyes down to her chest, where the tendrils of the delicate bow have fallen loose and she is completely, utterly nude.

Gaby spins around to find Illya and his absolute horror, his eyes flitting immediately up to her face but only managing an open-mouthed gawk. Then some cog catches in his brain. Hurriedly he snatches the loose halter up to her neck, holds it there for her in a fist. “I—”

She snatches the fistful of silk from him. A flick of a glance over her shoulder at her marks: Had they seen? Had they seen the wires? They are staring at her bared back. They are stepping forward to assist, only to stutter backwards when met with the burning glare of Illya, the austere Russian engineer, who is already wrapping Gaby close to his chest to hide her.

She should shove him back, hiss madly that he’d ruined all her hard work. She hopes they were only struck dumb by her tits, not the myriad of camouflaged wiring crisscrossing her ribs. They aren’t pointing guns at her, at least. Perhaps they hadn’t seen the wires at all. Perhaps she could turn around without a care and laugh and flirt and charm them all again — how European.

But Illya is her husband tonight. A wife would expect him to protect her modesty.

“Oh my,” she breathes, frigid, and reluctantly steps into the opened halves of Illya’s suit, flush against him. Her cheeks burn hot and red with fury as all her plans dissolve. She glowers up at Illya’s set jaw and watches him swallow heavily under her attention. His arm bars over the small of her back and he turns her, shielding her with all his mass and walking her like she’s stood on his shoes, one step at a time, to escort her out of the room.

 

 

“Gaby—”

They’re out in the hall, the doors shushing closed behind them too slowly not to catch the uproar of gossip inside. Gaby wrangles out of his grasp and clamps her jaw so tight it might crack her teeth.

“Gaby, the microphone. It was… the silk tore.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

How will she face them? How will she hold her cards close? She is a woman to them now, not only an asset. She has lost a lot of progress. Grasping the dress straps to her throat Gaby marches down the corridor to find a cloakroom, a water closet, a broom cupboard.

“Are you…?” Illya tries. “You are alright?”

She waves him off him briskly, already formulating a backup plan. If all else fails she could use this to her advantage. Were they all married? Unhappily? Perhaps if they liked what they saw, she could—

“Gaby,” Illya urges. His palm is covering her bicep and there’s urgency striding through him, tensing his grip. He turns her to look at him but she waves him off, trying to tie the knot at her neck again. She needs her hands free to contact Solo, see if he can do something about getting the men alone and have her pick them off one by one. “I’m sorry. I did not—”

“ _Sheiße!_ ” Her furious knot-tying has torn the silk again, a strip coming off clean in her hand. Gaby gathers the useless bundle in her fist again, very nearly shakes it at Illya. “Fix this,” she tells him.

“Yes. Yes, of course. I have needle and thread in my case.”

“Then stop talking and start doing.”

From the corner of her eye, mind reeling and reeling, she catches Illya mounting the lobby steps two at a time.

 

 

“So, what, you just bring one of these with you everywhere?”

“Is government issue,” Illya defends. He flips open the small canvas wallet and removes the pre-threaded needle before gentling her backwards, closer to him. “Please, stay in the light.”

What little light there is in this broom cupboard... Gaby cranes to watch him pinch the strap of her dress at the nape of her neck. The slim needle is comically tiny in his hand but he’s deft and steady. When he pokes through the silk to make his first stitches they are surprisingly quick.

“You’ve done this before,” she notes, dry.

“Yes.” He rolls the fabric between his thumb and forefinger, testing the strength of his stitch before continuing. “Sewing is essential skill for deploying microphones, trackers. Sometimes mistakes are made."

Evidently.

“Have you bugged my clothes before?”

“Yes.”

“When.”

“Rome. Istanbul. Algiers. Kraków.”

That’s disappointing. “I knew about those. When else?”

“I would not do this without asking you,” he answers, concentrating. Gaby huffs. His knuckles rest on her nape to steady his hold, and after some time he tugs gently at the dress. “Will not be a tailor’s work, but...” he pulls the thread and, miraculously, the row of stitches neatly disappear into the seam.

“Well, no,” Gaby says, turning to scorn him. “A tailor’s work wouldn't have torn in the first place.”

Illya’s blue eyes are pinpoint focused, both on the dress and on completely avoiding hers. “I did what I could to integrate microphone. It is not easy fabric to work with.”

“You chose it.”

“I did not think it would be so… flimsy.”

“It’s a napkin.”

“It is expensive.”

“You told me to go without a brassiere.”

The tops of Illya’s ears colour immediately. He grasps for something to say, looking all over the walls as if it might be written there for him. “The cut. The cut does not allow for—”

“Did you see them?”

Illya blinks down at her. “See who?”

“My breasts, Illya.”

A strange sound comes from the back of his throat. “No. Well, yes. I did. I did not look, but I… Yes. Sorry.”

“You can make it up to me.”

Illya seems to find her stare now far more compromising than anything else he’s seen tonight. He tries not to swallow too noticeably, but of course she notices. It’s Gaby’s job to notice these things. She doesn’t care that he’s seen them. She doesn’t. Not the way he thinks she does, at least, but she hadn’t been… This wasn’t how she had wanted it to happen, if ever it would.

Gaby flicks his stilled wrist slightly too hard to have him finish his work. He gives her a look and takes carefully to the sheer strap to tie off the thread, neatly aligns the microphone that caused all this mess in the first place.

“I’ll have Solo get them alone,” Gaby tells him. “I want to see Armstrong first. He will be flattered to get a private visit before the rest of them. If he liked what he saw, I need him competitive.”

Illya falters slightly, but he blinks himself out of it, and he nods.

“Thanks to you, and to these, I didn’t get Armstrong’s office address. When I’ve finished with him, I want you to follow him there while I make contact with the ambassador.”

He nods again.

“Get any security details he uses to get inside. Passes, keys, any guards on duty. Oh, and I get to choose my dresses from now on.”

That wakes him. He looks to her, wants to object, his brow furrowing for the injustice of it all. But he can only counter her with a last, remorseful nod.

“And I’m choosing your next suit.”

“My suit?”

“Got all of that?”

Illya warily folds his needle case closed. He tucks it into his suit jacket. "Is that all?"

"Yes.” Gaby brushes her hair back over her shoulders and rifles through her purse for her communicator pen. “For now."

 

 

 

Solo secures her an opening with each of her marks, ushering them into the right corners of the room and inviting nosy onlookers to the bar to get them out of her way.

With some effort, she manages to recover much of her ground. She reads her target, determines how they’d expect her to behave after such an embarrassing situation, and she acts accordingly. The ambassador values innocence. He assures her that his good opinion is not lost and that, truly, she has nothing to hide. So she plays coy, gets the date of the next underground THRUSH rally and promises to be there.

The treasurer is still virtually speechless by the time she gets to him, babbling this way and that and letting a little bit more slip about THRUSH’s investors than he really ought to — she’ll wear a short skirt and get a lot more out of him at their meeting next week.

But Frank Armstrong wants to give her a personal tour of his factory. He admires her confidence, compliments her on her assured stride back to the function room as if nothing had happened at all. Carry on, shake it off, persevere. He wants her on his team, and he wants her to look over his aeronautical surveillance project to see what she can do.

“ _I haven’t seen the Red Peril turn so red since Rome,_ ” Solo tells her, hushed through the device in her ear once Armstrong has excused himself. From the corner of her eye, she watches Illya stalk the THRUSH engineer out of the function room and back to the lobby, just as she’d asked.

Gaby rolls her eyes at the ceiling and idly checks the reinforced knot of her dress. “I take it you got a good look for yourself?”

“ _Nothing I haven’t seen before._ ”

“A hundred times, I’m sure.”

“ _They’re lovely, Gaby, really. And they just bought you a special tour at THRUSH R &D. We couldn’t have done it without you. Or Peril’s clumsy hands, for that matter_.”

Gaby scoffs and sips from her glass. Double vodka, ice cold. Her work is done here, and with all the wandering eyes of the guests who haven’t forgotten a thing, she needs it. “Shut up.”

“ _Go easy on him,_ ” Napoleon tells her, gentler than she’s used to. “ _You know how he is._ ”

She does.

She’s only trying to ignore it.

 

 

The next morning she manages that very well, and she begins the day as she means to go on: with intent to make the most of her bargain.

They breakfast on the Champs-Élysées. Rich, steaming coffee and richer clientele look on as Gaby orders an extravagant selection of breakfast pastries and fruits, creamy pâtisserie and a glass of bucks fizz to wash it all down.

Illya pays.

As with the rest of the guests to THRUSH's exclusive party, they’re encouraged to play tourists for the rest of the week. So, Gaby leads her doting husband into the boutique of her choice, lured in by the bright handbags and matching heels lining the windows.

A very mini mini-dress: fitted white crochet with long, flaring sleeves that make Illya frown. He has a pattern: bare arms, bared back, an A-line skirt that hovers just above the knees. Gaby breaks it over and over, just to watch him bite his tongue.

She wears her hair down, picks out a white hair scarf and white boots to match. Her purse is yolk yellow, her earrings too. When Gaby turns to admire herself from all angles, she spots Illya’s eye trailing from top to toe with a different look. Not criticism. Not admiration. He is watching her as if she’s on television, not right in front of him. As if he could say anything he thought, anything, but it wouldn’t matter at all.

“What?” she says, when he stares for far too long.

“It is different,” he offers.

“Different.”

He’s still wearing the same look. At last, he shrugs. “White, yellow. Like an egg.”

Gaby huffs a laugh. She flicks her loose hair over her shoulder, turns on her heel to leave him behind. “Good. Then I’ll take it all.”

He nods, and he stalks over to the counter without argument. Good. This might be the first time they’ve reached noon without bickering. She has finally won.

It's not as fun as she'd once thought.

 

 

 

The next day, by the time she comes down to breakfast Illya has already ordered yet more fresh hot coffee. Black, tar-strong, just how she likes it.

When they are due to follow a mark along the canal St Martin he carries her coat, taken off for the surprising spring heat. He carries her camera, her handbag, her umbrella. In his repent he has decided to become a pack horse.

Gaby won’t discourage it.

But at night, when the work is done and she, he, and Napoleon return to their hotel, he doesn’t accept a drink on the balcony. He doesn’t march himself to Napoleon’s suite just to list the things they’d done wrong, nor the things he would have done better. Rather he only gives her such mournful looks, if he even looks at all, and such careful platitudes whenever the room falls quiet. Solo’s pointed disapproval the moment Illya leaves doesn’t help.

It is _always_ Illya to leave the room. Always Illya to make himself feel terrible. He drowns himself in it. Gaby doesn’t even bring the incident up anymore. She is considering dropping their deal altogether; she can’t be bothered to shop vengefully, can’t be bothered to configure her own trackers and recording equipment only to prove a point. Illya is good at these things. It should be Illya doing his best work, not disappearing the moment the opportunity arises, not standing ten feet back. She wants his help. She wants his help and she wants him to stop going to bed the moment she comes back to the suite only to, she assumes, sulk.

And she misses him. She misses him a lot.

 

 

Mission accomplished. Two weeks in Paris has exhausted them; the flight home had been cordial, silent. They had been the most prim and proper husband and wife in all of Europe, stuffed miserably together on that cramped commercial plane.

They are only back at headquarters for four hours before they’re briefed on another mission, due to fly out all over again the following morning to Vienna. Fiancés, Waverly announces wryly, obliviously. They nod in unison, part ways outside his office.

Gaby looks for coffee as fervently as she looks for the positives. Well, with her suitcase lugged on her couch last night and forgotten, at least she won’t have to pack. And that... that's where she comes up empty. She'd like very much to crawl into bed and not think about any of this at all.

But first, as always, they have work to do.

And again, as always, Solo has wriggled out of his bureaucratic duties, skipping straight to his own bed with an air hostess he’d befriended on the way home, leaving Gaby and Illya to pick up the slack.

In their shared office, on two desks out of three the coffee is flowing and sleeves are pushed to elbows as printed words blur until they no longer make sense at all. The hours draw long, and the day fades into night. She may have escaped East Berlin, but she can't escape the lure of sleeping in her very own bed.

Gaby stands to stretch her arms, arch her back, and she picks up her coat from the back of her chair in surrender.

“Forgetting something?” Illya asks his desk.

Gaby looks at him expectantly, something she hasn’t done in a while. With his eventual held gaze and a slight tip of his head to the cart by the door, she deflates. The archivist has already taken his train home.

Gaby grumbles and begins loading her boxes onto the cart.

Illya is already up and out of his chair. He lifts the boxes like they weigh nothing, and Gaby dazedly watches him by the glow of her desk lamp. His eyes seem so heavy, his jaw stubbled and shoulders low.

Still, he pushes the cart. “I will handle this. You should go home. Big day, tomorrow.”

“I want to do it.”

He gives her a disbelieving little look. “You cannot reach the shelves.”

As much as Gaby wants to dispute that, she can’t. “Then I want you to walk me to my car.”

Illya considers this briefly, and he nods. That same old nod she's seen one thousand times over since that stupid night in Paris.

He continues directing the squeaking trolley down the hall. His holster is wrapped around his shoulders and it matches his belt, the strap of his watch. It's no coincidence. He has always been diligent that way, a man of detail. His back moves under his shirt and Gaby thinks of all the times she has been guarded by that back, those shoulders, and how much weight he really holds on them, all the time.

“Please walk me to my car.”

She finds it hard to meet his eye when he looks over his shoulder at her, properly, and she hopes he knows what she means. Hopes he understands that she wants him to want to, and that this is not an order.

Illya hums. “Is dangerous at this time of night,” he offers. A reason.

Gaby nods back, and she watches him walk this low little cart to the basement, where he barely stretches to reach the highest shelves, and deposits each box just where it belongs.

 

 

On their last night in Vienna, spread out on his hotel bed, Illya’s clothes receive a scrutinising eye.

He has beautiful clothes, to say he has clearly been dreading this moment for two weeks. It's dubious how a man of his… politics should collect such fine knits, such well-tailored trousers, branded shirts and suit jackets. Primarily black, brown, and darkest blue. Very practical for a man of his work, but classic, too, and Gaby isn’t ignorant to how they accentuate his features. He is clever enough to know it for himself, at least.

She had considered buying some very gauche pieces for him to wear tonight. An art exhibition, and a rumoured assassination just next door. It would be a small price to pay to see Illya work in a yellow silk shirt with ballooning lilac sleeves, a pair of boating stripe turn-ups.

He is looking at her like she might reveal that outfit right now. Perhaps pull it all out of her hat, endless colours and fabrics like a clown’s string of handkerchiefs. A costume to embarrass him, to compromise his work by making him a jester, the way he had embarrassed and compromised her.

But he has been very patient. A fortnight of his small gestures, the space he’d given her, the remorse. Last night in bed she had looked across the room to find him alone in his own, and had decided then and there that he has been shamed enough, more than enough, for his whole life.

Catching his wariness with a glance behind her now, she finds that she wants to pick something nice for him, the way he always has for her. With care, and attention, and an eye for practicality. His choice always considers how she moves, and how she ought to feel while undertaking the work that she does. A mod mini dress to fit in seamlessly with the partying upper-classes; with Illya’s eye they would never look down on her as the girl from East Berlin. Only he knows that girl, and still he reveres her, whether she’s in this season’s couture or her plain old pyjamas.

So he has some beautiful clothes. Tailored to him, because the likelihood of his size being stocked in any boutique is slim. He has accrued his own costumes. They take him from office to cocktail party — where he would lurk in the shadows of the room, too tall to blend in, too grimacing to invite conversation — to nuclear bases, to high-speed chases, to wracking through brambled hedges and over the tall stone walls of glamorous estates. He is skilled, adaptable, invincible, and sweet.

She wants to do this for him. Properly.

He stands behind her like an invigilator.

“This,” she says, and hands him his blackest turtleneck. She knows this will be her choice before she decides on the rest. The shirts are fine, but the turtleneck is his, and he can be a steady foundation when he wants to be. She doesn’t turn for his reaction, only continues peeling back the suit jackets to see more underneath.

It doesn’t have to match. Some guidelines ask to be broken. With a black turtleneck she has many options. Grey check, black velvet. Maybe the smooth midnight blue. Black with blue? To her knowledge he has never chosen this combination. The trousers, soft and finely woven in just the same blue with a poker straight crease down each leg. She holds them up and at her height they are trailing on the floor in front of her. How does he manage with such small suitcases?

He still hasn’t said anything, but when Gaby turns she finds he is looking at the back of her head, studying her hair, and he looks as if he desperately wants to speak up.

Gaby tucks her hair behind her ear and tips her gaze up to him. She folds the trousers over his forearm and hooks the jacket’s loop onto his finger.

He gauges her selection. “Is this mercy?”

“Just put it on,” Gaby murmurs, suddenly embarrassed by this whole situation. It feels like he can see straight through her. Like he can see any vulnerable part of her left behind beginning to crack into little pieces the longer her looks at her like that. Gaby skirts past him with little room to spare.

“And my shoes?”

“The black ones.”

Leaving him to critique at her selection, Gaby knows he’ll still look up to watch her leave. He always has.

But he doesn't catch her taking his needle case, tucked into the palm of her hand.

 

 

Gaby hadn’t had it in her to throw away the dress. Something of the Ossi in her, knowing she could re-purpose it, or sell it, or even just keep it as a trinket to hang in her wardrobe. It had still been stuffed in her suitcase from Paris, and she has nothing to do while she waits in the lobby... so why not?

Illya, for the first time in history, may even be thankful for her attitude to packing.

 

 

Illya, as always, is on time, but there’s urgency in his step as he descends the stairs to meet her in the foyer. He hasn’t laid eyes on her yet, so he can’t know that she’s watching him, but still he pulls at his jacket. He checks his watch peeking out of his cuff as he continues to tug at it, as if he isn’t used to his own tailored measurements, his very own suit.

If he paid any attention at all he'd find that he has admirers. From the desk at the foot of the stairs sit two indiscreetly gawking receptionists, and the group outside the ballroom are taking him in, too. The chandeliers and all the honey gold glow of the lamps set him in deep dark contrast. The height and the size of him are drawing the eye in the right way, and it's held firmly the moment he looks up, his brow furrowed in his constant way while he begins his search for Gaby.

He finds her sat deep in an armchair outside the dining room. He approaches, shined shoes clipping on the tiles, and she rises to meet him. She receives the clipped kiss on the cheek from her designated fiancé, and the eyes on his back reluctantly clap away with disappointment.

Gaby smiles.

“Ga—"

“You look nice," she says, because he does. She wonders how often he's told so these days.

His furrowed brow softens and he stops tugging at his cuff to stand taller. “Thank you."

Gaby pulls her slim bag strap onto her shoulder and starts for the doors, but she's briskly stopped by a warm, heavy hand on her shoulder. 

"Please," Illya starts, and stops. He takes a slow inhale, turns her around to meet her eye with such sincerity she feels she ought to look away. "The... complication, in Paris. My complication."

"Oh, that? Forget about it."

"No. You were professional," he insists. "Strong. You were exceptionally efficient, and I am proud of you. Proud of the work you have done.”

Gaby watches him. Clearly he has said far too much. Looking for something else to do with them, Illya clamps his hands firmly behind his back.

“I would have said this sooner, but—”

“But I wouldn’t let you.”

He considers this carefully before deciding that there's no trap to fall into. “No.”

"Well." Gaby shrugs. She steps forwards, pulling Illya closer by his sleeve. "That's good to hear."

She rubs the fabric with her thumb and forefinger and yes, it's perhaps her favourite suit of his. Under his careful stare she plucks at the high black neck of his sweater too, perhaps lets her knuckle graze his throat, just to get him back, to show him what it had done to her, having his hands on her back the way they had been that night, fiddling with that cursed microphone. She supposes it wasn't such a mishap after all, now that it has lead to this.

Illya frowns at her, bewildered, then down at his own chest as she tucks a shoddily hemmed square of gold silk into his breast pocket.

“Missing a little something,” she tells him, and smiles apologetically.

His wariness is washed over completely. Illya only peers down at her with such a grateful tenderness it makes her want to throw every reservation she has ever had to the ground and kiss him stupid, once and for all.

So she does.

 

 

 


End file.
